by David Berens
“None of my business,” T.J. said.
“Anyway, my point is I could hang with you for a bit. Keep you company till your moms get off work.”
T.J.’s eyes squinted. “You ain’t some kind of pervert trying to hit on me or nothin’, right?”
Troy laughed. “Not hardly.”
They walked toward the gas pump and T.J. seemed to notice the police car for the first time.
“Oh, I get it,” he said. “You’re a cop.”
Troy decided not to correct him. “Don’t worry. Just a recon mission. Ain’t nobody goin’ to jail tonight.”
Considering the hornet’s nest he was probably driving into at the Tail Spinner, he wondered if he was wrong about that.
23
Testes One Two Three
To say that the night at the Tail Spinner strip club was uneventful would be an understatement. For one thing, the cop there was not the man named Jed Manning. It was an older guy with a bowling ball stomach and a horseshoe of hair. Troy only saw him once all night, when he had walked outside to smoke a cigarette and make a call. Troy rolled down his window to listen to the call. Again, nothing sinister except for the fact the man’s wife apparently did not like the fact that he was working at the strip club. The next call the man made was to the wife’s sister. Though it was an interesting sub-plot, Troy decided it had nothing to do with the big picture of the Prosperity kidnapping.
Other than what Troy guessed was a typical late-night crowd at a strip club, nobody of interest came or went from the Tail Spinner. He waited as long as he could, but he saw no reason to stick around past three-thirty. He spent most of the night just chatting with T.J. Poor kid was the victim of a pretty common scenario. No dad in the picture, and contrary to what Troy thought, his moms were actually twin sisters sharing responsibility for the boy. Apparently they had once had a bit of money, but they burned through it pretty quickly. And now they had turned to the second oldest profession in the world—taking off all their clothes for money.
T.J. seemed to be a good kid, even had a few part time jobs to make money and contribute to his interesting family. Troy decided he liked the kid and he’d look in on him from time to time.
“You gonna be good here?” Troy asked before he left.
“Nothin’ I’m not used to,” he said.
“Aight. Then I’m gonna cruise,” Troy said, hopping into Michael’s cruiser.
“Talk soon.”
“Bet on it, kid.”
Troy pulled out of the gravel lot and wondered where the hell he should go next. His answer appeared as a roadblock on the way home. Three police cars lined the road, blocking the most direct route back to the Airbnb. As Troy approached, he pulled his hat off and tossed it into the passenger’s seat. The first officer flagged him down. Troy eased up and rolled his window down.
“Howdy, brother,” the officer said.
Troy recognized him as the same cop who’d been there at the Black Dog Tavern, and he thought it was the same voice on the radio announcing the APB—Jed Manning.
“Somethin’ goin’ on, officer?” Troy asked.
“You might say so, friend. Big rally tomorrow for the Frank McCorker campaign. It’s going to be huge.”
“Ah, yes,” Troy said. “I can’t wait to see it.”
“Do I know you?” the officer asked, leaning down to look into the car. “Say, is this an old police cruiser?”
Troy did his best to look confused. “Can’t say if I know you. And I wouldn’t know about the car, I bought her used.”
“Yeah, I’m going to need to run the tags. You mind to step out of the car, sir?”
A bead of sweat threatened to form on Troy’s forehead, but he played it off. Technically, he hadn’t done anything wrong. But there was the APB on him. He knew it wouldn’t take long for this cop to realize he was the man they were looking for, but he didn’t know how to get away.
“I’m kinda in a hurry, officer.” Troy pretended to look at his watch. “Gotta get a good night’s sleep before the rally tomorrow.”
Jed opened his mouth, but he was interrupted by a car caught behind Troy honking its horn.
“What’s the holdup, up there?” a voice shouted from the car. “My beer’s gettin’ warm.”
The cop took a deep breath. He looked over at the other two officers and pointed at the car with the honking guy.
“Get him out,” he said. “Call the wagon. I’m thinking we got a DUI back there.”
He looked from Troy to the car with the intoxicated yeller. On cue, the man yelled something again, but it was so slurred, Troy couldn’t make out what he was saying. Before the cop could change his mind, he looked at his imaginary watch again.
“Say, what time did you say that rally was tomorrow? I really don’t want to miss Frank.”
“Gates open at eleven,” Jed finally said. “But the main speeches won’t start until twelve. I’d get here early if I were you.”
“Sounds like a plan. Thank you kindly, officer.”
Troy eased his car forward before the man could protest. The other two officers were busy wrestling the drunk guy out of his car, so Jed waved him through the blockade.
“Get on home, now, you hear?” Troy heard him say as he pulled away.
If only he knew where home was going to be tonight. With the Airbnb off limits and the McCorker office on high alert, he was going to have to think of something else.
Daisy Mae Gallop always loved it when the club offered last call. The men who were still at the Tail Spinner were way past drunk and still had money to throw away on the pipe dream that one of the girls would agree to go home with them. She enjoyed taking their money and promising she would come right over after she got off. Sometimes she would give them a fake number and tell them to text her after closing. It never ceased to amaze her that men still fell for that.
But tonight it was quiet and still. There was one man passed out on a couch in the back and two other guys sitting at the bar. None of them were watching her dance, and none of them were giving her any money either. But she liked the song and gave it her all. She always played Jon Bon Jovi’s song, “Blaze of Glory,” for her final number. There was something poetic in the twangy refrain that made her feel like more than a small town stripper.
That’s when Country ambled in and laid a ten dollar bill on the stage. He sometimes hung around near closing, and more than once he had walked her to her car when there were creepers hanging around in the parking lot waiting on her and Ellie Mae to come out. But tonight something was different. He didn’t look right. She bent down to peck him on the top of his head and saw he had a towel held to his crotch. It was soaked with … blood?
“Darlin’, what’s wrong down there?” she asked.
“Got a bit of a flesh wound is all,” he said. “You got any pink thread in the back?”
Daisy Mae soaked the needle in 151 rum and rolled it between her fingers over a lavender scented candle until it was white hot. Country sat across from her with a clear baggie of ice held on his groin. He was pale and sweaty and starting to sway as she laced a long pink thread through the eye of the needle.
“Few more seconds, darlin’,” Daisy Mae said. “We’ll git ya fixed up real good. Won’t even be able to see the stitches.”
“Ain’t nobody down there these days no way,” Country said.
“Well, now,” Daisy Mae patted his thigh, “we might have to do somethin’ ’bout that when you get all healed up.”
Country smiled and winked at her, though his eyes were narrow slits anyway. She reached down and picked up the bag of ice. She gasped at what she saw underneath and couldn’t help but put her hand up to her mouth trying to hide her shock. The unfortunate shriveling effect of the ice had turned the man’s testicles into a couple of raisins—and in his case, raisins coated with blood. She gagged and coughed.
“Hey, this ain’t funny,” Country wheezed. “Just git done with yer work, woman.”
“I ain’t laughi
n’, Country,” Daisy Mae said. “It’s just … I dunno if I can do such small stitches.”
“Then do big ones!” he said, a tinge of anger appearing in his voice.
“Honey, you ain’t got enough real estate for big ones.”
He opened his mouth, but she reached down, took hold of his injured one, and stabbed the needle in. The scream that came out of his mouth was so high and shrill that Daisy Mae swore she heard a bunch of dogs start howling outside. In the first of a string of unfortunate events, Country’s legs involuntarily kicked out when she stuck the needle in. His right boot connected with the stool that held the candle and the 151 rum. The rum splashed all over his feet.
The second unfortunate event was the candle lighting the rum. In a whoosh, the flame raced up Country’s ankles, singeing the hair on his calves and turning it instantly to ash. Country yelped and scrambled to his feet shaking them wildly like a rabid tap dancer. Daisy Mae watched as the scene seemed to unfold in slow motion. The flickering fire below his knees seemed just about to go out when the third unfortunate event took place.
The long pink thread dangling from his testicle, now soaked in rum, caught fire. Like a fuse running toward a stick of dynamite in an old Wile E Coyote cartoon, the flame raced toward its end, which was Country’s jabbed family jewel. He seemed to notice this just before it reached its destination, and he took off running.
In the fourth and final of the unfortunate events, Country chose the door to the stage to run through, rather than the exit. He burst through to the door and Daisy Mae watched as a startled Ellie Mae fell off the pole and smacked down on her bare bottom. She was dancing to her last song and for once in her sister’s life, she couldn’t have chosen a better tune.
Country’s flaming, half-naked, frantic dive off the stage coincided with the last verse of Bob Seger's “Fire Down Below.” He grabbed a bucket of ice and beers from a front row table and turned it over on his lap. The sizzle of the fire going out synced with the final ringing electric guitar twang of the song and the crowd—all three of them—gave him a standing ovation.
24
Dropping Like Flies
Buff Summerton answered his public cell phone as he always did. “McCorker for Governor. This is Frank speaking. How may I serve you?”
He could barely recognize the voice on the other end. It was frazzled and thin.
“Hey, Frank,” the man said. “It’s me.”
He was used to prank calls and figured that’s where this was headed, but until he knew for sure, he had to play it out like a good politician.
“Well, hello, me,” he said with a smile in his voice. “How may I serve you?”
“Frank, it’s me, Country.”
“Shit, Country,” he said. “How many times have I told you to call me on the other line, goddammit.”
He hung up the phone and turned it off. Seconds later, his burner phone—the one he used for Shark business—rang and displayed a number he recognized.
“Yeah?”
“Frank, what the shit? Why’d you hang up on me?”
Something was clearly wrong with Country. His speech was slurred and he spoke so softly that Buff could only hear every other word or so.
“What is it?” he demanded. “Are you at the club?”
“Yup. I am at the club,” he said proudly. “Good news. My balls are stitched up good as new and I just made forty-three dollars and fifteen cents.”
Buff literally held the phone away from his ear and stared at it in disbelief. “Country, if this is a joke, I don’t have time—”
“No, no, no,” Country interrupted him. “I was just callin’ to tell you, I’ve got it all figured out.”
“Spit it out, man. What have you got figured out?”
“I’ve got some of Santa Claus’s DNA. I’m gonna pin the whole thang on him. It’s perfect, don’t ya see?”
Buff almost hung up. “Country, I don’t know what kind of drugs you’re strung out on, but you better get cleaned up and fast. You’ve got a delivery to manage in two days and you need to be sharp. So get some goddamn coffee or something and call me back when you’re—”
“Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Frank.” Country slurred.
The vein in Buff’s neck throbbed and his pulse raged in his ears. He wanted to reach through the phone and beat the man to a pulp.
“If you’ll listen for a second, I’ll explain.”
“If you don’t say something absolutely freaking brilliant right now, you’re going to want to disappear and hope I never find you,” Buff said through gritted teeth.
“It is brilliant.” Country sounded like the guy in the movie who looked inside the Ark of the Covenant. “I’m gonna make the drop with Santa Claus and conk him on the head. Then I’ll drop him overboard with the body. The police will think he fell asleep when he was disposin’ of the girl.”
Buff’s anger was replaced with utter confusion. “Country, I hate to break this to you, but Santa Claus is not—”
“Not the Santa Claus, you idiot,” Country interrupted him. “Banksy. He’s got that narcosleepiness thing or whatever. He falls asleep standin’ up. He’s the perfect patsy.”
Buff shook his head. He gave up trying to figure out what he was saying. Whatever happened, he needed to be sure his name was far away from the whole thing.
“Country, I don’t give a rat’s ass how or what you do,” he said, but if you screw up this drop and the cleanup of your mess down in the cellar, I’ll be going to jail, but it won’t be for that. It’ll be because they found me with my hands around your cold, dead throat.”
“So, you’re sayin’ my plan is okay?”
Geezus Christ, Buff thought as he hung up the phone.
Buff walked into the kitchen as he dialed Jed’s number to check the status of today’s rally security, but it went straight to voicemail. He grabbed a glass from the cabinet, ready for a stiff drink, but never got to pour one. He was about to leave an angry message when he glanced out the window and saw his wife lying on her stomach on a deck chair by the pool—topless. For her age, Florence was a shapely woman, meticulous in diet and fitness, so being sans shirt was not in itself cause for anger. No, Buff did not care if she paraded around the house naked in front of him. In fact, he might like it if she did it more often. What he did care about was the fact that she was doing it in front of their pool boy—a kid who was everything Buff used to be: young, tan, fit, thick haired, and good looking.
The hair on the back of Buff’s neck stood up as he watched her stir her drink seductively and arch her back raising her chest up off the chair. The yoga-like posture threatened to expose all of her and Buff felt something pop in his temple. He was sure he’d blown a vein. He glanced over at the kid and for a second, his ire settled back into a manageable rage. Actually, watching the boy drag the net back and forth through the water calmed him a great deal. He chuckled as he realized the guy wasn’t looking at Florence at all. In fact, he was downright ignoring her.
Poor Flo, he thought. Just don’t have it anymore, do you? Apparently, Florence came to the same conclusion that she wasn’t attracting the appropriate level of attention to her display, so she did what any self-respecting woman would do in the situation—she rolled over. At the sight of her surgically enhanced breasts and their dark brown points jutting skyward, Buff’s anger went nuclear. The kid, also noticing Mrs. Summerton’s lily white chest on display, took a wrong step and missed the side of the pool with his foot. He lost his balance and fell with a splash into the cool blue, freshly swept water.
Buff slammed his empty cocktail glass into the sink, shattering it into a million pieces. He took two steps past the kitchen table, grabbed the back of one of the chairs, and in one fluid motion, heaved it through the sliding door that led out to the pool. A shower of tiny pieces rained out onto the concrete in a violent explosion of glass.
Florence bolted upright and grabbed her towel to cover herself twisting her ankle and wincing in pain.
“C
hrist, Buff—I mean, Frank. What the hell was that all about?”
He stomped out onto the pool deck, intending to grab the kid, but he had pulled himself out of the water on the far side of the pool. Buff was a strong man, but was never agile. He was a lumbering football lineman of a man, while the pool boy was a lithe, sprinter type. Seeing the angry husband stalking around the pool, he took off running. He bounded past Florence and in a leap and a pull up, he had scaled the privacy fence in one motion. He was over and running down the driveway when Buff reached the gate.
“You’d better get the hell out of town, kid,” he shouted after the kid, huffing and puffing with exertion. “Don’t ever show your face here again unless you want it blown off your head!”
“He didn’t do anything, Buff,” Florence shouted.
Buff turned around, deep in the flowing red rage he had experienced all too often back in the war. Rational thought was long gone. The urge to let the wave of anger express itself was intoxicating.
Florence saw it in his eyes. She started walking backward, then her ankle gave out again—definitely a sprain—and she stumbled as she tried to get away. The backhand that struck her jaw was the hardest swing Buff had ever taken at anyone in his life. Florence Summerton’s chin racked sideways from the impact and ended up perpendicular to her face. It was a brutal, vicious hit and Buff got a rush from the shock he saw in her eyes. She fell backward onto the ground, towel flung to the side, her bare breasts exposed again.
She held up a hand, but Buff ignored that. He reached down, grabbed her arm, and jerked her up to stand next to him on wobbly legs.
“You’re a whore,” he growled at her. “You were always a whore. I should’ve realized you were never going to change after your little fling back in Maryland.”
During Buff’s last deployment to Afghanistan, Florence had apparently decided to seek solace in another man’s arms. Upon his sudden discharge, Buff showed up at the house to find her in her canoodling with the gardener. Why is it always the damn help? I should have known that’s what she was up to when we hired the pool boy, he thought. He dragged her by the arm to the edge of the pool, terror flashing in her eyes now.
